Washington -- The United State and European Commission (EC) renewed a consultative task force on biotechnology research in an agreement signed June 8 by John Marburger, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and Janez Potocnik, commissioner for science and research for the European Commission.

Established in 1990, the task force fosters open communication between the EC and U.S. agencies that conduct biotechnology research.

The task force will meet July 19-20 in Brussels, Belgium. It will be co-chaired by Kathie Olsen, deputy director of the U.S. National Science Foundation and Christian Patermann, EC director of biotechnology, agriculture and food research.

"The renewal of this task force agreement ensures that we continue this successful partnership between Europe and the United States in biotechnology research," said Marburger.

"I am pleased that this important trans-Atlantic dialogue and scientific cooperation will continue to yield important results to improve our collective efforts in the life sciences and biotechnology," he said.

The task force has promoted research in the fields of neuroinformatics, nanobiotechnology, environmental biotechnology, applications of biotechnology to fuels and other products and synthetic genomics.

The collaborative group is one of several efforts falling under the U.S.-European Union Agreement for Scientific and Technological Cooperation. The EC is the European Union's administrative arm.

The full text of a press release about the task force is on the White House Office of Science and Technology Web site.

For additional information, see Agricultural Biotechnology.